Red's Charcoal
by I-Am-Jason-Son-Of-Jupiter
Summary: "I..how does she know...What?" Nico could only stutter and mumble. It may have just been a charcoal drawing to a normal person, but to him, it wasn't just a drawing of charcoal. It was Rachel's charcoal drawing. And that's what made all the difference. Short oneshot, first fanfic, yada yada...So R&R!


**So I'm new...and I know what you veterans are thinking; FRESH MEAT EH? My first story and it's not percabeth, not thalico, not thuke...not humor, not drama..BUT ROMANCE? EW YOU'RE NOT A GUY OMG. But yeah. I'm a guy, I DO have a heart. So, my fellow brothlings, do read and feed my creative mind with your lovely feedback!...Well, my friend SeaOfWisdom18 DID help me think of that quote...uh taht means I soudne like a girl..WHEN I'M MOST OBVIOUSLY A MANLY GUY...**

It's days like this that Nico feels like running away.

Yes, he realized that his thoughts sounded strangely like a Katy Perry song, but there's no blaming him; It's all he could think of at the moment.

Of all the selfless friends that could've been coincidentally staying home that winter break while his one guardian flew to Miami with his one decent cousin and stepfather...it had to be that one.

The most ruthless, dangerous, violent, snappy one of them all.

He had asked Sally to stay home. He tried, but to no avail.

The woman was _unbreakable._

"Please, Sally. PLEASE." he begged. She was merciless.

Wait, Sally? Yes, Sally Jackson. Her motherly instincts had recently kicked in when she realized that one of Percy's VERY INDEPENDENT cousins had been traveling the world by himself, with no uber uber UBER awesomely powerful son of Poseidon to "protect him from any monsters" that came his way.

So she took him in...well, in a way. He could do pretty much anything EXCEPT stay by himself in a deserted hotel room...or steal money for survival purposes, because he was a minor. ' Me being under 18 is only a _minor _obstacle,' he thought grumpily, no pun intended.

"No! I can't let an innocent young, 15 year old boy stay all by himself, especially when he's A DEMIGOD." Sally exclaimed, rolling her eyes at the mere thought.

Nico scoffed. He had heard about his odd...being...at 10, fought off hundreds of monsters by 11, witnessed a gore fest in the middle of Manhattan when he was 12, become the Prince of the Underworld (officially) when he turned 13, and had been the victim of one of Thalia's meltdowns by 14. He had been through pretty much every natural hazard there ever was in the world.

"Come on, Sally." Nico pleaded relentlessly, dragging her across the tiled floor of Apartment 2B.

"No. I'm going to Miami to enjoy a lovely MONSTER FREE vacation with my family, and you will be accompanied by food, water, and a very _safe _apartment. goodbye." she finalized and with that, she strode out the door.

Nico sighed and plopped down onto the cushions before flying back up and bounding out the door. If he had to stay home, he might as well do it with some ice cream.

The bell on the door of the ice cream shop rang clearly and melodically as Nico rushed in, relishing in the cold room.

He stood in line for several minutes, and when he got his double scoop rainbow sherbet ice cream, he sat himself down on the white plastic chairs that were provided.

He was about halfway through his delectable frozen treat when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Okay, that was a lie. Somebody had intentionally socked his arm and whoever it was, they made sure he would be left in pain.

"Ow! What was that for?" he whined, turning around to see who it was, preparing for a tussle.

He gritted his teeth angrily when he discovered who it was, and turned back around in a childish huff, muttering to himself about how, "unladylike she was," and "how incredibly mean of her."

"Hi to you too then." Rachel chirped enthusiastically, offering a hand.

To punch him again.

By the time Nico left the supposedly cheerful, jubilant family run ice cream shop, he was clutching his left arm in severe pain.

"Stupid witch always trying to hit me-OW!" Nico tripped and thrust out his hands to prevent from bashing his head into the concrete and leaving a bloody imprint on 42nd St.

"Can you freaking stop it Rachel!...Thalia...What? What? WHAT."

Nico saw his cousin/enemy arm in arm with his other enemy...and they were smiling. Mischievously.

Nico didn't do smiling mischievously. He did frowning, smirking, or smirking cheekily (Only he could do something like that), but definitely not smiling.

Thalia's black hair fell into her crackling blue eyes as she looked down at her cousin's weak state. She should have had pity, but instead she felt like cracking up.

So she did.

Next minute, Rachel was the only one not writhing around on the pavement, either bawling or laughing.

"The people I know are..." she left it at that.

"Well, here we are. Make yourself at home, Thals. And Nico," she shot him a look that was figuratively saying, "I'm not going to finish that sentence, but if you touch anything that's worth more than ten dollars, you _will _pay with your fingers. On a stick."

"Deep fried." she said out loud, leaving Nico's imagination wandering in places he shouldn't have been wandering in.

Since Rachel and Thalia were chatting mindlessly about...uncomfortable _girl _stuff, Nico decided to explore the forest that was Rachel's house.

He wove in and out of doors, trying to find the "main hallway," so he could at least have an idea as to where he was, but to no avail.

"Gods damnit, her house is bigger than the freaking Statue of Liberty." Nico huffed about 3 spiraling staircases later.

He dragged himself through the brightly lit hallways and _finally _found the main hallway.

"I think I just passed three of my birthdays trying to find this damned place," he muttered to himself tiredly.

His hands felt the smooth, cream colored walls as if they were foreign, and his feet scuffed along the fluffy white rugs that lay across the hardwood floors.

Everything was so posh, so neat, so..._colorful, _that Nico felt well out of his comfort zone. There were white walls with orange sofas and black and white patterned pillows...in the _hallway. _It seemed like a home that belonged in seventy million fashion magazines, not to the world's most...blah person, for lack of a better word.

Nico couldn't help but feel a little envious. Here she was, Rachel, his worst enemy...the person he's least compatible with in the world, with everything he _never _wanted.

And he suddenly wanted it so bad.

"I guess that's just natural behavior," Nico stated in a slightly childish tone.

He had grown up from the absolute dregs of society. No, he was _lower _than the dregs of society. Literally.

Hell was _actually _his home. Hades _was _his father. Nico shouldn't have snickered at the though, but he couldn't help it.

The highway to hell was his bus ride home.

"Now if I had Darth _Vader _as a father..." Nico wondered, not realizing the stupidity of his ADHD thoughts.

The adolescent sighed. "But alas, I live in Hades...wait I live in my father? GROSS. Hold on, did I just use the word alas?" Nico was getting a bit...delirious from the buzzing colors on the wall, and he held onto it for a little support.

"Well I _was _an epic angel in my time at home though." Nico defended himself against his own argument.

"...Oh that makes it seem like I'm a loner doesn't it? Yeah..Oh gods, I'm answering my own questions..." Nico whined at his forever alone-ness, stamping his feet and tripping over the once smooth rug.

He cursed almost as colorfully as the hues of the house he was currently in, and he struggled to get back up to his feet.

He inadvertently opened the _crystal _knob to one of the fifteen rooms (cue eye roll at ridiculous size of house for one person,) and Nico realized it was...well, _obviously _Rachel's.

Blank canvases of various sizes were messily piled up in one corner of the er...room/loft, and paintbrushes were carelessly strewn across her...if Nico could even consider it a floor.

It's hard for the boy to imagine how...no comment, a rich girl could be.

"No offense RED," he once mocked Rachel, using Percy's nickname for her. "But how could a polite little rich girl like you be so MESSY?"

He almost needed a couple of squares of ambrosia after that day.

Nico picked up a couple of her paper sketches that were lain across her lavender bed.

The shading was so intricate, the details painfully small and delicate; almost nothing like Rachel herself.

After a bit of squinting trying to decipher what the busy drawing was, Nico figure it was a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

"Huh...interesting." was all he could manage to say...until he glanced at the bottom and saw that the title was, "The Empire State building: Darkest Days."

Nico hurriedly put it back, hoping no one could _read his thoughts _right about now.

In other words, he hoped to Zeus Rachel wasn't behind him, and if she was, that she wasn't as sensitive to people mistaking her artwork for something else as she used to...

He wanted to hate it, partially because it was so...like him, an partially because of the evil three headed witch who drew it, but it was actually pretty cool.

The next few were paintings, some oil, some colored pencil; They were of things like flowers, cereal boxes (uhm, Nico didn't know how to respond to that either,) water bottles, and even something as weird as a dodecahedron, she still drew.

He examined some of Rachel's charcoal sketches on the canvas and was surprised at how gory it was.

People, teenagers it seemed, lying on a pavement floor, clutching spears and swords that were impaled somewhere in their body.

The skyscrapers in the background were falling, crumbling.

Nico didn't know how...imaginative Rachel could be.

The closer he looked however, and the _more _charcoal drawings he scrutinized, the...more familiar they seemed.

"What _is this sorcery?" _he exclaimed, finally looking at them closely.

The drawings, he noticed, were organize in chronological order...as in, the date they _occurred._

As in, they had already happened.

Even events Rachel and himself had never been to, like when Poseidon claimed Percy at Camp Half Blood, Percy fighting a minotaur, Annabeth injured with that dagger in the war of Manhattan..so many pictures of the war of Manhattan...

Luke was also a popular folder of drawings.

He was five, with gap teeth and a bright face. His polo shirt was stained a little with cookie crumbs, and he was holding a paper with a big fat star across the center.

HIs mother, May, if Nico remembered correctly, was on the side, clapping and beaming.

"Last I recalled, she was a crazy old woman with a tendency to be grabby." Nico muttered, flipping though some more paintings.

Luke, then 18, had golden eyes, kneeling before a glowing case of gold...Kronos.

He had several half bloods as a sacrifice, their mouths hanging open lifelessly as Luke stayed there, in the center.

Then, a picture of an earthquake it seemed, with several teens hanging onto poles and lamps and sofas...they had a look of fear in their expression, and some were even crying. The sky was eerily purple, and Nico swore he could hear a voice talk to him in his mind.

"She's so messed up." he commented nonchalantly, munching on some Kit Kat bars he found nearby.

"Wow, come into my room, eat my inspiration candy, AND call me messed up? You have quite the balls, Di Angelo," Rachel strode into her room and snatched the candy from his hands, even though it was half eaten.

"Well maybe if you weren't so much of a freak, I could appreciate your work more." Nico snapped back, instantly feeling guilt when he realized he just insulted her work.

Then, he was bound to the floor with a rope.

"Argh! NOT. FAIR." he struggled against the binds, knocking into the small bookcase next to his feet.

"THAT'S MAHOGANY, DI ANGELO!" Rachel shrieked, instantly trying to recover her teetering bookcase.

After a couple of red marks and a long, awkward silence (Nico being tempted multiple times to scream out, 'FOR NARNIA! GET THE WARDROBE, WE MUST GO IN!') Rachel started with an unwanted explanation.

"It's the Oracle." she muttered.

"What?" Nico started to ask when Rachel shushed him.

"I can tell you're freaked out by this, so let me kindly explanation. Meaning, shut up, Nico." she rolled her eyes while Nico huffed and whined silently like a five year old.

"This didn't always happen. I mean, only in the past few months. I used to draw anything, everything...but not stuff like this. Sometimes, my spirit would be so strong that something forces me to draw..anything it wants me to. I don't even know what it is until I examine it and..find out that it has something to do with...I don't know," Rachel sighed and pulled her hair back into a frizzy ponytail.

"Anything. Something do with the prophecy, something important. And I guess, well, in my obvious condition, I draw stuff that...hasn't happened yet. So be aware I guess?" she ended lamely, sighing again when her attempt to lighten the mood only made it darker.

"OW!" Nico broke the dark silence when he stubbed his toe on the mahogany bookshelf again.

"Dude! You're going to owe me like $1300 if you end up breaking it!"

The son of Hades widened his eyes very noticeably.

"Dude!" he mocked, gesticulating wildly.

"I think that's worth more than Percy's freaking rent!"

"You have to be underestimating," Rachel said incredulously, not believing what she was hearing.

Nico rolled his eyes. "I do their taxes, I should know."

Rachel cracked up then and there, not being able to fathom the thought that NICO did someone's taxes.

"Gods! You? good at MATH? Please. You would make them go bankrupt and homeless."

"Hey! I happen to be very skilled in the art of-"

"Epic mathness, I know."

"How did you-"

"Know your punchline? I'm the freaking oracle Nico. I know what you're going to have for breakfast ten years from now. I know what color boxers you're wearing. Hell, I even know what color boxers David's wearing."

Nico wrinkled his eyebrows. "Who's David?" he asked curiously.

Rachel waved it off absentmindedly. "I don't know, some guy who works at a law firm in Tennessee."

Nico's mouth opened so wide, a dozen flies could have each made a baby in there, excuse the gross figure of speech.

"..You would make the world's greatest stalker, Dare. I'm impressed." he praised, stealing another one of her candy pieces and stuffing it into his mouth hungrily.

Rachel giggled and dusted her jeans off, getting off of the bed.

"Well, Thalia's back from getting groceries...I don't why she did it for me, but hey! Free labor. I think I was going to make turkey with everyone coming over...wanna help?

At first, Nico hesitated. Rachel Elizabeth Dare, his worst enemy, asking him to help her prepare a dinner with their friends? Did she poison it or something?

But then, for some reason, he let go of that darkness, that loneliness, that want for nothing...and finally, he let _something _into him.

Nico commended himself for thinking so dramatically and deeply. He should totally be a poet.

Nico's brain might have always been filled with thoughts and cool mathematical equations, but finally, he thought as he prepared to jog down the interminable staircases with Thalia and everyone, 'Maybe letting something into my heart after so long was a good idea.'

Now, he understood what it was like to subconsciously make some friends, and not have them thrown at you randomly, like Percy, his _cousin, _or Annabeth, Percy's girlfriend...

"Look! Death Breath woke up from his grave!" Travis teased when the trio finally arrived into the huge kitchen.

"Don't be so mean, Travis," Rachel mockingly reprimanded him.

"He lives in a nice coffin, at least not a grave."

Rachel Elizabeth Dare: worst enemy.

Who knew?

Definitely not him, that's for sure.

But what Nico DID know? Maybe Sally should visit Miami more often. It seems to do him pretty well.

**The Mahogany thing was for SeaOfwisdom18 *rolling eyes because she's so lame***

**HHMMM...NOT WHAT I IMAGINED IT TO BE AT ALL, MIGHT REVISE IT BUT I DON'T REALLY CARE WHY IS THIS IN CAPS LOCK AND WHY AM I NOT INSERTING PUNCTUATION *CUE PUNCTUATION INSERT** OK REVIEW PLEASE BYE BROS.**

**~~~ Unfortunately, the awesomeness has left the building,**

**I-Am-Jason-Son-Of-Jupiter**

**PEACE.**


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